Being a woman who enjoys video games can be…limiting. But the austerity might be why you see the tabloid elden ring Memes actress/director Emily Faris posted to r/GirlGamers feels so exciting.
“I felt like I had to separate gaming from mine [professional] Life, so of course I created a second Instagram account,” Faris told me. “I’m too much of an art school maniac to just post pictures of myself — the memes were a natural way for me to fill my feed.” She started posting the images depicting FromSoftware’s latest RPG with the combine the pinkest, most polar counterpart as a niche meme “offers” on the r/GirlGamers subreddit a little over a week ago. Since then they have garnered hundreds of positive votes and raving comments, and when I saw them I was blown away by their unique style.
They’re about celebrity, the pastiche of 2002 and the Real Housewives of New York City (renamed to the Real housewives of elden ring in one post). They take Hilary Duff at a Shopping spree photo shootMatthew McConaughey in the romantic comedy How to lose a man in 10 daysand Anna Nicole Smith Make a Christmas special and map them to Runes, Streaming and Merchant Kalé. You’ll find her rhinestone sparkles more often in the bullet journals of curtain-banging girls than in the average gamer’s media diet, but that doesn’t make them irrelevant to gaming. This expands the scope.
“The meme format is this bizarre internet puzzle,” Faris said. “So deep into the world of elden ringI can’t help but recontextualize the world into something recognizable [to women] yet unexpected.” You seem to be saying that the stereotypically female woman who is just like “other girls” is just as likely to play a difficult video game as anyone else. And that’s also part of the appeal of the memes.
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“I don’t think I would have connected to my nerd brand if I hadn’t accidentally decided to explore my creativity in a new way,” Faris said.
“I think I’ve seen myself as an outsider to gaming culture and the community at large, but still a reticent gamer,” she continued. “I told myself this is an area I don’t fit in just based on a random idea I had about what makes someone a ‘real gamer.’ But if these little memes have taught me anything, it’s that there are other players who have the same sense of humor and references as I do.”
Despite women themselves knowing that they are indeed capable of owning an Xbox, memes and mean internet discourse often make us feel like we must be either a “not like other girls” charlatan or an adorable Twitch host. Streamer making faces.
However, both categories are at least partially designed for men. The former breaks up with other women to make themselves more desirable to men, and the latter dons fishnet stockings and cat-ear headphones for the same reason.
Women should be able to speak and dress and carry themselves as freely as any other person. But especially in a historically male domain like gaming, there seems to be a need to have at least some of the content, aesthetics, or vibe made just for women. Otherwise there is no real place for us. But Faris’ memes are an example of how the average gamer, bored with tired narratives, clears that space and drapes it in Juicy Couture.